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Among Strangers

30/9/2017

by Laura Ferguson

Among Strangers is the newest work from playwright Angie Farrow. Her show last year, The Politician’s Wife, had given me a lot of think about, and I was looking forward to seeing her newest offerings. Among Strangers is a production of three different plays, Breaking News, Esther, and August Moon, based off Farrow’s conversations with women aged 15-20 about how they see themselves in this world, these ‘changing times’ as the programme describes.

Breaking News centres around a young woman, Jolene, who is at the height of her journalistic career and feels the pressure of maintaining perfection. Esther portrays the return of a girl who went missing for three years; but is she really the same Esther? And finally, August Moon, a tale about the titular character who loses a mother. This is no dire portrait of loss, though; instead, we get a comedy for the conclusion of this showcase. It’s a curious experiment and as I sit, I avidly anticipate the beginning.

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Nell Gwynn

22/9/2017

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by Laura Ferguson

The house was full for Wellington Repertory Theatre’s premiere of Nell Gwynn. The air is festive as we sit, orange-sellers of yore hawking their wares, bringing alive that 17th-century spirit. They stay while the play begins in earnest. A young actor flubbing his lines and the orange-sellers heckle him as if they were the crowd. I love this touch, the cheeky calls and the flustered character on stage turning red and more awkward. Nell starts speaking up and her quick-wittedness is apparent from the start. I laugh heartily at the innuendos and sly remarks, Ewen Coleman’s directing allowing for a spectacularly immersive opening.

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I, Will Jones

22/9/2017

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Hilary Penwarden

With I, Will Jones, comedian Eamonn Marra steps beyond stand-up to create a piece of theatre that expertly explores the feeling of desperately wanting to be somebody else. When Eamonn Marra was 12 years old, Will Jones was the coolest kid in his school. Will was great at sports, he had a girlfriend and his name was unmockable - everything Marra wanted. I, Will Jones is Marra’s recount of stories from his adolescence that centre around his desire to be Will Jones instead.

The stories are at once autobiographical and magical and the production introduces us to Marra’s past youth with style and humour. Entering the theatre, we are treated to a messy tweenage bedroom with a clothes-strewn floor, skates and a child-sized desk. Eamonn enters with amusing spectacle on a bicycle, immediately capturing the audience’s allegiance. His over-the-top entrance as a fully grown man dressed in boys’ shorts and a Planet8 hoody, coinciding with ridiculous welcome-to-the-stage flashing coloured lights, sets us up for a show that approaches recollections of juvenile life with a blend of merriment and regret.

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Me and My Sister Tell Each Other Everything

19/9/2017

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Corey Spence

Theatre that tackles the heavy issues isn’t something new. It is often reflective of the things theatre makers believe society needs to work on. My Accomplice’s Me and My Sister Tell Each Other Everything is one such show, dissecting the relationship between two sisters and revealing how each copes with mental illness. This work, however, is more than just another show about mental illness and suicide, and it’s a leap forward in inspecting what mental illness is and how it affects us. It doesn’t just identify mental illness and suicide as things that happen and things we deal with in everyday life, it shows us. This showing rather than telling turns Me and My Sister Tell Each Other Everything into exactly what it needs to be: raw, ugly, and confronting.

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Public Service Announcements: Stranger Politics

14/9/2017

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by Laura Ferguson

I love politics. I watch the news, I read the articles (not just the headlines!), I search for unbiased opinions. I especially love politics when it’s being made fun of. From The Daily Show and John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight to The Last Leg, I try to absorb news from well-informed, satirical visual formats. How lucky I am then, that the Wellington-based The No Fefe Collective brings us another installment of Public Service Announcements, this one aptly titled: Stranger Politics.

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Anahera

13/9/2017

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by Laura Ferguson

As I sit in the corner of Circa Theatre, I notice the ever-building buzz of the crowd. Snippets of conversation filter through: ‘Well, Kinane’s Paua was…’ and ‘Oh, Wolfe directed Waru? It’s going to TIFF, right?’ This crowd is very familiar with the works of the playwright, Emma Kinane, and the director, Katie Wolfe. For me, this is my first time. I am not familiar with their previous work and though looking forward to Anahera, I do feel a slight trepidation. The play has been touted as one to come to if you enjoyed Broadchurch, but really, does one actually enjoy something like Broadchurch? I feel the creeping dread that I will be walking into heartbreak.

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Punk Rock

6/9/2017

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Corey Spence

“What room do [teenagers] need?” director Samuel Phillips asks, and after watching Punk Rock, I’ve spent a lot of time collecting my thoughts, considering this question closely. Punk Rock hits close to home; it’s a story about teenagers and how they cope with loss, bullying, fear, and friendships, and as such, it easily translates its British setting to our New Zealand context. The cast and crew deliver a knockout punch, producing a performance that forces you to consider teens’ experiences with mental illness -- including, possibly, your own experiences. Punk Rock is unsettling as hell: challenging and sometimes difficult to watch, but all in service of a greater goal. It left me deeply pensive about my place in these issues.

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Reviews

Among Strangers

by Laura Ferguson

Nell Gwynn

by Laura Ferguson

I, Will Jones

Hilary Penwarden

Me and My Sister Tell Each Other Everything

Corey Spence

Public Service Announcements: Stranger Politics

by Laura Ferguson

Anahera

by Laura Ferguson

Punk Rock

Corey Spence

Local Honest Reviews

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